


When In The Hinterlands...

by NoxumBoots



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bears are Scary, Cassandra Pentaghast's Disgusted Noises, Crack, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Hinterlands (Dragon Age), Lavellan Is a Feral, Nugs, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22466791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoxumBoots/pseuds/NoxumBoots
Summary: Do as the Herald does.Their journey to the Hinterlands is the Inquisition’s first real field expedition, and for the party, it’s their first real trip with Lavellan.It goes about as well as one can expect for exploring with a Dalish elf.
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast & Varric Tethras, Lavellan & Varric Tethras
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	When In The Hinterlands...

  
Their Herald, a Dalish heretic elf with a glowing mark on his hand, took a deep breath of forest air and almost sobbed. Solas gave him a funny look while Harding smiled, moving along after her report.

“ _Tel'inana_ , I missed the grass,” Lavellan said, trying to defend himself while wiggling his bare toes into the earth. He’d kicked off the boots as soon as the ground wasn’t snow or rock.

“Keep yourself together, Herald,” Cassandra said distractedly. “We are not here for pleasures.”

“You say that like I’m about to start rubbing embrium all over my hips.” Despite this, he looked like he was two seconds from falling over and rolling around in the grass. “Just missed it. Haven isn’t really the definition of flourishing.”

“Save your ‘flourishing’ for after we find this Giselle,” said Varric, though he was smiling teasingly.

“Right, right. Yeah. Okay. Let’s go!”

  
  
  


“OH GOD OH FUCK-”

Ice shattered, and blood spewed everywhere. Varric got a mouthful of it. “Chuckles!”

“Apologies, Tethras.” Solas didn’t look sorry. “A moment of _distraction_.”

“This bitch almost stabbed me,” Lavellan shouted, displaying the dead templar beside him with his arms. “I had the right to yell.”

“Stop yelling and prepare yourself. More are coming!”

“You heard the lady, Twigs.” Varric prepped Bianca. “Heads up!”

Cassandra looked disbelieving, to say the least. “...You gave away your bedroll.”

“She was cold,” Lavellan explained, hoisting his pack again as they walked through the Crossroads. “Her mom was busy and there weren’t enough to go around. You heard Whittle.”

“We’ll find the apostate caches, Twigs, there’s no need to give away your own stuff.”

“Yes, there is.” 

And that was that. Varric shrugged. “Alright. Don’t come crying to me tonight.”

  
  
  


“LAVELLAN!”

“There’s a patch of elfroot up here, we need it! I’m almost there one second-”

“We do NOT-”

The earth slipped out under his boot. “SHIT-”

  
  
  


“Oo, whatcha got there, Twigs?”

Lavellan scritched the nug behind its velvety ears. “A friend.”

“How did you even manage to grab that…?” asked Cassandra, sounding more astonished than angry at that point.

“I fed her some raspberries I grabbed earlier. She liked them and kept following me. Then she got tired.”

“So you carried her.”

“Mhm.”

Varric cackled. “Oh, this is golden. We’re keeping her.”

“Doesn’t our Spymaster have a soft spot for nugs?” Solas asked, a soft grin appearing on his face as Varric laughed harder. 

“Hahaa, we’re DEFINITELY keeping her now!”

_“Ugh.”_

  
  
  


“Where did Twigs go?”

Solas looked a bit stunned. “...Um.” He pointed to the edge of the ridge with his staff.

“...He fell off the cliff?!”

“I, um, suppose he did.”

“Herald!” Cassandra yelled, running down the path without a second thought. “Maker’s breath, how do you manage this?!”

Solas and Varric looked at each other, then back down the cliff.

_“...I’m okay! Don’t worry!”_

They paused, then chuckled, starting down the path at a much slower pace than the Lady Seeker.   
  


“No.”

Lavellan’s lip wobbled as he held the Fennec fox. Its ears twitched. “But-”

“ _No._ We already have Raspberry.”

“I thought you said we weren’t naming her!”

“We aren’t, and we are NOT bringing the entirety of this forest to Haven, is that clear?!”

  
  
  


“...That’s a skull.”

“Yes, _durgen'lin._ ”

“That’s a _glowing_ skull.”

Solas sighed. “Yes, it is. It is radiating magical energy, but beyond that- oh.”

“Oh?” Varric parroted, before turning back to the skull. _“Oh.”_

Lavellan was mushing his face against the skull, looking through the back of its eye socket. Cassandra looked too shocked to yell at him. Solas approached, a hand out to touch him. “Lethalin-”

“I see something!”

Solas paused. “What?”

Lavellan leaned even closer, if that were possible. “There are... _things_ all over the plains! Like crystals! Creators’ sweet arses!”

“...please don’t.”

But Lavellan was already scrabbling down to the battlegrounds.

  
  
  


The last templar dropped to the ground.

“Holy shit,” Varric breathed, more of a silence breaker than anything. He reloaded Bianca with care as the others recovered as well. Solas was leaning on his staff rather heavily. “You okay there, Chuckles?”

“Never better,” said Solas. He wiped some sweat off his brow. “Just overdrew on that last Inferno.”

Lavellan laughed, blood splattered in his face and hair. “Goodness, that was… wow. These guys are chaotic!”

“They are desperate,” explained Solas, leaning over a dead apostate and shutting their eyes in some semblance of respect. “They have no leaders, no order, and are obsessed with smiting the other group. It is not pretty.”

“Yeah,” the dalish breathed, still getting his lungs back into working order and trying to process what Solas was explaining. “Yeah.”

“What is this.” Cassandra had found something while they were speaking. It was a brick of stone, glistening and humming, with a crude skull carved into the top. Lavellan, disregarding caution once again, picked it up. “Hey-”

“Cool. Solas, do you know what this is?”

“I do not. It emanates a strange magical energy, one that I do not recognize.”

“...Do you think Leliana would know?”

Varric shrugged. “She might.”

  
  
  


“Lavellan. We cannot, and I mean _cannot_ , bring a ram with us back to Haven.”  
  
“But he _wuvs_ you-”

“NO.”

  
  
  


“Horse no like me.”

Cassandra ughed at him. Lavellan’s horse snorted, trotting in a clumsy circle while the elf tried to hold on.

“Aren’t you Dalish horse masters? Or those holler things?” Asked Varric, sitting on his own pony casually.

“You don’t _ride_ ‘halla’,” he said, fumbling with the reigns. “And the Lavellan are hart riders, not horses.”

“You can RIDE a moose?!” The dwarf sounded incredulous, and maybe like he wanted to write that down for later.

“If you’re careful- _FENEDHIS!_ AH, AH, WOAH WOAH WOAH-!”

“Stop tugging the reigns, Twigs!”

“OH GOD-”

  
  
  


They made camp on a hill, near the edge of the Hinterlands, where bluffs rose to the south and trees started coming up in throngs. It was nice to have a break for the night, pitching up tents and stewing some ram they had caught earlier. Raspberry was sleeping near Lavellan’s tent, but the elf was… in a tree.

“We discussed this, Lavellan,” Cassandra said slowly, sounding at the edge of her rope. The elf didn’t answer, just looking around with a scouter’s eye. “...What are you looking for?"

“The trunks.”

“Eh?”

“They had territorial scratchings on them.”

“Aye,” said a soldier, pausing in coaxing the coals open with a stick. “Bears in the area. Great big brutes of ‘em. Don’t attack ye unless ya get too close, but they come out ‘round nightfall.”

It was nightfall. And Lavellan was in a tree.

“The bears aren’t going to get you, Twigs,” said Varric, walking up beside Cassandra. “And if they do, Chuckles will just set them on fire.”

“I’ll what?” Solas called from the fire.

Lavellan shook his head, clinging to a branch defensively. “You haven’t seen one of those things in action. Scratches on the trees, they’ll come back.”

“And if they do, we’ll fight ‘em off.” Varric exclaimed. Close, but no cigar; Lavellan didn’t move. “...Do you want dinner or not?”

His stomach rumbled. He drew in a huge, dramatic breath of defeat, and started to clamor down.

“Yay!” one woman exclaimed, before covering her mouth in embarrassment. Varric laughed, pumping a fist. Victory.  
  


“...a _CHOO!”_

“Do you regret giving away your blanket now _,_ Lethalin?”

“ _Ar'm_ _tel'abelas_.”

“Very well.”

  
  
  


“What are you eating?”

Lavellan froze mid-chew, staring at Cassandra with wide eyes from in the taller grass beside the path.

A moment of silence passed. 

“...Herald-”

The elf ran.

“GET BACK HERE! SPIT IT OUT!”

  
  
  


Varric was scratching something in a journal. Cassandra peered over, failing to hide her curiosity. “What are you doing?”

“Writing this shit down,” said the dwarf, not looking up. “If we survive this Inquisition long enough to see the Breach gone, it’ll make a pretty good story. What with what Elfie is giving us over there.”

Lavellan was bopping Solas atop the head, and they vaguely caught the word ‘egg’. Solas then yanked the Dalish by his ear.

Cassandra quirked a smile, which was impressive, seeing how annoying the whole deal had been to her. Still, ever serious, she said, “It will indeed. But it will be for nothing if we cannot seal the Breach. Meeting with the Chantry is the first step, and helping these people is the first step towards that. We will get there.”

Lavellan was thrashing and squealing as Solas dragged him by his ear, looking like a stern parent about to give the Herald a stern tongue lashing. Varric looked up at the two then at Cassandra. “Should we go and help him?”

“Absolutely not."


End file.
